What little updates are you adopting to stay current?

[Maising]

I'm trying to make a few changes to keep looking current; I thought it might be helpful for others to add theirs too. I have found it's very easy to suddenly take a look around and find that things have moved on without me noticing 😁, especially as I'm working with ever increasing younger colleagues.

Disclaimer- these are just observations, I am not saying they are all correct or that anyone has to do them.

• wide leg trousers instead of slim/skinny for work
• flat shoes for work
• sports socks instead of trainer socks
• less eyeshadow

Ha, I have to do the glasses for menus etc and couldn't agree more! My eyesight isn't generally bad enough for contacts yet so I'm stuck with it. I also have to do it at checkouts sometimes to open the wallet on my phone which usually means the assistant immediately presses the do not challenge button when I'm buying wine 😂

I don't think glassss in general make you look old btw it's just the on and off thing. I put my on my head at lot which is convenient but I don't think is a particularly good look

Nothing aging about grey hair or glasses IMO. In fact, grey has become quite fashionable among the young. Though of course, there is also nothing wrong with looking older. It's too bad that some people act as though growing/looking older is somehow negative or shameful.

implying you cant look nice in glasses!🙄
Glasses are to see, like hearing aids are to hear.....they dont make you look old or unfashionable they make you look like you have some impairment, thats all.

As for wide legged trousers, they def arent for everybody. If you are shorter or wider then they can make you look dumpy.

I wish I had a choice about glasses, but I can't wear contacts and my prescription is so strong, I also can't wear the larger frames as they come out so thick, they are twice the size of the frame on the edges! Even with thinning. I have had to accept that fashionable glasses are not in the list of things I can change.

It is quite rude to point out people have sight difficulties though, someone once came up to me in a shop and said 'you are holding the items so close to your eyes', um, yes, I'm partially sighted. Wearing glasses might be something older people have to do, it's not always a choice unlike skinnies!

Even with thinning. I have had to accept that fashionable glasses are not in the list of things I can change.

Same here @WayOutOfLine
DD has worn glasses since she was three, and has never looked older than her years. She is nearly 24 and has to keep ID on her all the time as she is challenged about her age everywhere.

Maybe LoobyDoop2 thinks that all sight and hearing impaired should stay at home, and why not ask anyone with walking aids and who use wheelchairs to stay out of sight as well?

@RampantIvy I hear you. If we are truly honest though, if I had a choice, I would choose either more trendy frames or contacts, so I don't truly blame anyone who can make that choice. I did look into laser/replacement lenses, but they are not suitable either. You are right though, for many of us, it's not a choice, it's a fact of life, we aren't choosing it!

Well said

I need glasses, I occasionally wear contacts

Wtf?! That’s a completely bizarre misreading of my post. I have to wear glasses for reading. I can’t see a thing less than 18” away without them, but my distance vision is as sharp as anyone’s. It is endlessly frustrating having to constantly take glasses on and off, the constant adjustment is absolutely infuriating, but I would literally be half blind if I didn’t do it. And having other people twitter on about how “ageing” that is, as if that’s the main problem with it, just adds insult to injury.

I have adidas gazelles (although suede, so only worn on dry days!) and pro-moderators when I want a chunkier trainer (like the ones pictured). I’ve been wearing slim straight jeans in place of skinnies and just treated myself to a pair of relaxed straight. I’m 5’3” but I found them in short length in River Island, which fit me perfectly and don’t make me look swamped. They totally remind me of what I was wearing in the late nineties!
I have my hair longer and less of a structured cut. I still can’t quite give up my straighteners though!
That said, I’ll be giving the crop tops a miss this time around 😂

I actually think I look older without my glasses. They hide my eye wrinkles 😂

@henlake7

”Glasses are to see, like hearing aids are to hear.....they dont make you look old or unfashionable they make you look like you have some impairment, thats all.”

Seriously! (From someone who has both). I thought we were way past shaming people who wore glasses.

Nothing aging about grey hair or glasses IMO

oh come on we can avoid being ageist without being thoroughly disingenuous

if you are middle age (as I am) grey hair is almost certainly going to age you. That’s not to say you can’t also look glamorous/stylish/elegant/edgy. You might, but what you won’t look is younger, because whether you like it or not grey hair is intrinsically linked to aging.

the same for “reader” glasses. Long sightedness is an almost inevitable feature of aging and so reading glasses are naturally associated with the same.

no one is saying that older women can’t look amazing and certainly not one is coming close to saying older women should stay at home

Same 😁

Ok, the visible sock thing sneaked up and I am ignoring it, but today I saw two late teen looking girls walking up the road in their knickers. Not bikini bottoms (I live by the sea), but knickers and crop jumpers.
I will not be adopting this style.

I was going to say something on these lines - probably not quite as well expressed though, dancing

if you are middle age (as I am) grey hair is almost certainly going to age you. That’s not to say you can’t also look glamorous/stylish/elegant/edgy. You might, but what you won’t look is younger, because whether you like it or not grey hair is intrinsically linked to aging.

Yessss. I don't understand why some people are hellbent on denying that grey hair ages people. It might look fantastic and flattering and on trend and more beautiful than their previous dye job but it invariably makes a person look older. And that's okay.

I don't disagree about the greying hair comment. I get my hair coloured every 5 weeks.

With the grey hair it does make you look older....sometimes, and there are exceptions!

I know somebody in their 70s who insists on dyeing their hair jet black. It does not make them look younger, it looks godawful!
A natural grey in a decent cut would make them look a million times better and and more current and on trend.

If its about adopting trends to look current then grey hair shouldnt matter. It isnt unfashionable or fashionable to have grey hair at the moment, is it?

From my late 30's I had my black hair coloured to cover up the greys, but unfortunately dyes do not come in 'my' black, which is charcoal, rather than raven.
It was only during covid that I realised my dye colour was all wrong for me.
My hair is now black and grey, mostly grey, but luckily grey is one of 'my colours'.
I think I look better grey and black rather than dyed black.

I have long, curly hair. It’s naturally very dark, almost black, but as I have a lot of grey now(and have had some since I was a teen), I have it dyed a caramel colour which is, I hope, more flattering on a 52 year old face.

I am not going grey any decade soon. I can see from my roots that there are chunks of black, so I think I’d look like a skunk. Also, I have yet to see anyone who goes grey relatively early on whom it looks flattering. I think it can look could with a funky haircut, but I just have too much curly hair to get away with something short and choppy.

I'm never current. I wear trainer socks, skinny jeggings (can't cope with jeans), hair scrunchies and eyeshadow. I'm happy with my look.

... makes a person look older. And that's okay.

Yep, it's okay! You always get a conflation in these threads - and, to be fair, in some fashion media - between 'current/fashionable' and 'youthful'. Styling is very unlikely to make anyone look younger.

It never has. Back in the 1960s and early '70s, adults did dress differently from teenagers and so those looks got labelled (by the young) as ageing. They weren't, though. A 30-year-old in a tweed skirt and twinset looked 30 years old.

It's a little odd that this misconception has stuck. Any-generation fashion's been a thing for as long as most Mumsnetters have been alive. As the young and bouncy are currently opting for comfort, we don't even have the harsh style divide that was previously imposed by the painful feet, aching backs and bloated tummies of older age.

I'm probably lucky to have been around Fashion People for most of my working life. Designers of all ages wear whatever the fuck they like. I'm not ashamed of my crumpled, sagging face or squishy, oblong body - should I be? I'm a survivor until I'm not, and a survivor who enjoys fashion. I don't look like the picture on the website (or model on the catwalk) and it would be bloody weird if I did at my age 😄 As you said, it's okay.

Give us some examples!

Plenty of wide legs on Swiss influencer Darya von Bergen's Insta. Women still seem to be in pointy shoes, though - strikes me as inconvenient on all those cobbled streets!

I'd not expect the clientele at very swanky hotels to be particularly fashionable: aren't they mostly in 'timeless' well-tailored beige and black of excellent fabrics?

All the talk of grey hair and aging reminds me of my sis in law. only 10 years older than me (she mid fifties and me mid 40s) she has grey witches hair as we call it. refuses to dye it ( that's her perogative ) however at every funeral we ho to for a relative I am always asked am I her daughter 🙈😅 she got a hena dye done one time for a wedding hair looked fab and took years off her. I think grey hair is aging some women pull it off and look fab but they have the right colouring. I think I will try it when am 70 maybe